U.S. Pat. No. 3,329,482 to Young describes crystalline titanosilicates which are prepared from siliceous and inorganic titanium compounds in the absence of organic bases. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,501 describes a process for the preparation of titanium silicalite, TS-1 with the formula xTiO.sub.2 (1-x) SiO.sub.2 where x lies between 0.005 and 0.04. The UK Patent GB 2071071 B, describes a process for the preparation of TS-1 with the structure of silicalite-1. The titanium silicates are useful in catalyzing various oxidation reactions such as the conversion of benzene into phenol, phenol into hydroquinone and catechol, cyclohexanone into cyclohexanone oxime, ethanol into acetaldehyde, isopropanol into acetone etc. In all the above applications, it has been found that the catalytic efficiency of titanium silicate material is directly proportional to the content of titanium in the titanium silicalite. That is, the more the amount of titanium contained in these materials, the higher the rate with which they catalyze the above mentioned conversion processes. Hence, any process of preparation that leads to TS-1 of formula xTiO.sub.2 (1-x)SiO.sub.2 wherein x is higher than 0.04 would lead to material with improved catalytic activity in the above mentioned reactions.
The process for the preparation of TS-1, in the prior art, as for example in the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,501 (Example 2) was to mix the sources of silicon (preferably silicon tetraethoxide) and titanium (preferably titanium tetraethoxide) at low temperature (5.degree. C.) before adding organic base (such as tetrapropyl ammonium hydroxide, aqueous solution) precooled to 5.degree. C. and water. Since the rate of hydrolysis of titanium tetraethoxide is much faster compared to that of silicon tetraethoxide the cooling of the reaction mixture is important to avoid the formation of insoluble or sparingly soluble titanium oxide/hydroxyoxide, which if formed hinders the formation of titanium silicate. However, the necessity to cool the reactants to 5.degree. C. under industrial conditions is a limitation in the prior art process which entails significantly higher process energy costs. Further, in the above mentioned patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,501), the crystallization time of TS-1 under hydrothermal conditions at autogeneous pressure ranged between six and thirty days. It is quite desirable to reduce the preparation time of TS-1.